


Her Mother's Ring

by RosieTarnation



Category: The Resident (TV 2018)
Genre: F/F, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-17
Updated: 2020-08-17
Packaged: 2021-03-05 19:01:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,021
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25950286
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RosieTarnation/pseuds/RosieTarnation
Summary: Conrad said his mother's instructions were to give the ring to love of his life.  He told Nic the ring was hers, she could do what she wanted with it.She has someone she wants to give it to.AKA, so much Conrad/Nic family fluff.
Relationships: Conrad Hawkins/Nicolette Nevin
Comments: 6
Kudos: 21





	Her Mother's Ring

“There’s something else we need to discuss,” Nic said, watching Conrad clean up after dinner and playing with his mother’s ring on her finger.

“What? Everything’s in order. Your car is packed, I have a route and two backup routes planned, we have the optimal move-in time, Mary’s said goodbye to all her friends…”

“Almost all,” Nic said. She took the ring off and set it on the table.

Conrad looked over at her and noticed the motion. “Oh.”

“I’m not saying she is going to give the ring away right away,” Nic said. “But she’s leaving for Georgia Tech tomorrow and Elena is coming in the morning to say goodbye.”

“You think Elena is the love of her life?” Conrad asked, tone nothing but surprised. Nic shrugged. “They’re eighteen years old, Nic.”

“Yeah, apparently, some people have the good fortune of meeting the love of their life when they’re young.”

“Hey, we’re still young,” Conrad said, knowing full well that very morning she teased him for the grey in his beard.

“Yeah, definitely,” she said, only half-sarcastic. “I’m just saying, it’s a big life change. She’s leaving home for the first time, she’s an adult.”

Conrad looked like he was going to protest, but Nic cut him off.

“I know, she will always be our little girl,” Nic said. Conrad washed off his hands and sat across from her. She took his hand on the table. “She’s starting a really big phase of her life tomorrow, like you did when you first shipped out. I know she’s staying in town but, still…”

“Nic, the ring is yours,” Conrad said. “Whatever you want to do with it, I support.”

“That’s the thing, I want her to know we support her,” Nic said. “Maybe she’s met the love of her life already, maybe she hasn’t, but…this ring means so much to me, Conrad, and to you and to your mother. My family never had anything like this, anything to pass along and I want our family to have that. I want us to give this to our daughter, I want her to give it to someone she loves.”

Conrad kissed her hand. “I think that’s an excellent idea, Nic.”

“I’m sorry I’m only bringing it up now,” Nic said, wiping a tear she didn’t notice fell. “I’ve been going back and forth on it, I know there’s plenty of time to give this to her but now feels right, you know?”

“I do know,” Conrad said. They could hear Mary upstairs listening to music. They both thought about it a lot, how the house would be so much quieter without her. They both looked forward to it and dreaded it.

They had plenty of family photos, photos all over the house and on their phones and desktops of them, stuff both Conrad and Nic didn’t have when they were Mary’s age. Conrad and Nic were determined to have a family and make sure it was happy and whole and healthy and it was, it was perfect. Their lives were happy, they were all so happy.

Nic had lots of photos from when it was just her and Conrad. She had way too much pride to make Conrad her phone background when they were first dating, but for that entire time, the phone background was a photo of a lake he took her to on a hike on their third date.

The ring, though – the second he gave that to her, she knew she’d never take it off. She didn’t take it off when they broke up (either time), she didn’t take it off when he gave her her engagement ring or her wedding ring. She wore it all the time and that reminded her more than anything of her family, of the love she was lucky enough to be surrounded with.

She wanted that so much for her daughter, for their family. She wanted something that she could have and know the history, beyond a photo from a day at the beach or from her high school graduation. She wanted her daughter to have _something_ , something that she could have on her all the time to let her feel as loved as she absolutely was, like Nic felt when she wore the ring.

Conrad laughed. “I hope you’re prepared for how much I’m going to cry tomorrow,” he said. “It’s going to be total waterworks.”

“I think I’m going to make it through drop off and move in okay,” Nic said, confident. “But coming back here without her…”

“God, it feels like we just brought her home yesterday.”

“Right?” Nic agreed. “That loud six year old who was making an equitable toy sharing schedule in her foster home is going to study public policy at Georgia Tech. I bet you anything, in ten years we’re going to be helping her move into her office on Capitol Hill.”

“Ten years?” Conrad asked with a chuckle. “She only needs to be 25 to be a Representative.”

“Well, there’s grad school,” Nic said.

“Like our daughter couldn’t do both at once,” Conrad said.

“Look, as long as your done angling to get her to give med school a try…”

“Or nursing school! I’m flexible.”

“The last thing this family needs is another doctor,” Nic said. “She saw you help people any way you could and she’s taking another path. I’m proud of her.”

“I’m proud of her too,” Conrad said. “We got so lucky having such an amazing daughter.”

“Besides, she’s been hearing us complain for years about the system, I’m not surprised she decided to find another way to fix it.”

Conrad smiled. He and Nic had risen the ranks at Chastain, Bell had long since retired but they managed to get him to see the light, Chastain was way better off than it was when they started there and it was only getting better.

They both had been traveling in years past, giving lectures and seminars on how to implement the changes they made at Chastain in other places.

But Mary was right, there was only so much change that could happen from the inside, from the bottom up. They needed more allies outside the healthcare system, because the larger system it operated in was rotten, too.

“She is so much like you, it makes my heart hurt,” Conrad said. “How’d I get so lucky to end up with two of you?”

“You think she’s more like me?” Nic asked. “Conrad, she even talks like you.” She dropped her voice, putting on as gruff a tone as she could muster. “ _If the rules don’t serve the people they govern, who do they serve?_ That was in her valedictorian speech.”

“I know, I was there,” Conrad said. “Proudest moment of my life.”

“Mine, too,” Nic grinned. She stood. “Alright, want to go do this?”

“Yeah, let’s go.”

They headed upstairs. It wasn’t a very long walk, it was a walk they’d done thousands of times.

A bunch of those walks replayed in both their heads…

**\--**

“It feels wrong to just… _pick one_ ,” Nic said, walking up the stairs after they got home from the first time they met Mary. 

“I know,” Conrad said. “I wish we could take them all.”

Nic nodded as she reached the top of the stairs. She stopped and turned to Conrad.

“I know we said we’re open to anything, any age, any gender or race, anything,” she said. “That maybe we’d meet the right one and we’d just know, that maybe we wouldn’t have to… _choose._ ”

Conrad nodded. They’d spoken about it for months, about how they could possibly just pick a child to be theirs. How they could choose which ones wouldn’t be. It seemed impossible, to make that sort of choice about the life of another person. They were ready to say yes, to find their family, to have their child.

But the specter of saying “no”…it haunted them. And it wasn’t a totally unfamiliar sensation – they’d both had to give really hard, nearly impossible no’s to patients before.

But this was different. These kids weren’t patients, and Conrad and Nic weren’t there to treat them. They were parents. 

“That little girl Mary…” Nic said, voice breaking a bit, a smile breaking out on her face.

Conrad smiled, too. He knew it. They had walked in to the foster home after months of study on how to do this as ethically as possible, to limit the hurt on the children they’d say no to. They were so set on easing the no that maybe they were a little hesitant to commit to a yes.

But they had walked in and seen that girl orchestrating a toy sharing schedule, making sure all the kids, older and younger, abled and disabled, could have the best time they could. She spoke loudly and confidently, sure that what she was doing was important.

They watched and stood back a while, trying not to be too overwhelmed. There were other parents there, too, and they all found their way to children to talk to and get to know.

After a few minutes, Mary came up to them.

“Tyler likes planes,” Mary said, speaking right to Conrad. “Do you like planes?”

“Yeah,” Conrad said, looking her square in the eyes and addressing her like an equal. “I do like planes. Do you?”

“I like cars,” Mary said.

“Could you show us where the planes and cars are?” Nic asked. “Maybe you and Tyler and us could all play together for a little while.”

“Tyler really likes planes,” Mary said. “I can play by myself.”

“Well, I don’t like playing alone,” Nic said. “Can you play with me?”

“What do you like?”

“Cars, planes, whatever,” Nic said. “I’m Nic, what’s your name?”

“Mary.”

“Mary, that’s a nice name,” Nic said. “Can you show me your favorite car?”

Mary nodded after a moment, then led Nic to where the cars were. Conrad followed. They sat at one of those impossibly small child-sized tables and got to playing.

“Can we play with you, Mary?” he asked.

“Tyler’s really little, a lot of people like to play with him,” Mary said.

“We want to play with you,” Conrad asserted gently. “If that’s alright.”

Mary looked around.

“Is that Tyler over there?” Conrad asked. He looked over and saw a little kid playing with planes with an enthusiastic adult. “He’s all set, he’s okay.”

Mary looked between them. “This one’s my favorite,” she said finally. It was a little green car and she rolled it across the table to Nic.

“Oh, I like this one,” she said. “I like the color, is that what you like about it?”

“It rolls funny,” Mary said. “If I try to roll it straight, it goes to the side.”

“Huh,” Nic said, rolling it back to Mary and watching it roll to the right of her. “I see that.”

Mary rolled it back to Nic. “Does your car do that?”

“No,” Nic said. “It used to, but I got it fixed.”

“Does yours?” she asked Conrad.

“No, I don’t really drive,” Conrad said. “I like to ride my bike. Do you like to ride bikes?”

“Sometimes,” Mary said. “I want to drive a car, though, a green one like this.”

Conrad laughed. “Yeah, maybe in a few years, you’ll get a green car just like this”

“Do you ride bikes for your job?”

“I ride my bike _to_ my job,” Conrad said. “I’m a doctor.”

“Are you a doctor?” Mary asked Nic.

“No, I’m a nurse,” Nic said. “We work at the same hospital, though.”

Mary nodded, still rolling the car back and forth with Nic. 

“Do you know of any other nurses?” Nic asked.

Mary shook her head.

“Well, there’s this famous one, she is the person who figured out how to be a really great nurse,” Nic said. “Her name is Mary Seacole.”

“Do you know her?”

“Oh, no,” Nic said. “She was alive in the 1850s, a really long time ago. She helped a lot of people get better who were sick and injured, and I want to be like her.”

“Her name is Mary?”

“Yeah,” Nic said. “Just like you. Who knows, you could grow up and help a lot of people just like her.”

**\--**

All their days working at Chastain were long, but some days were _long._ Some days they came home from work and walking up those stairs to bed felt like climbing a mountain.

It’d been a stressful day at work, and on top of that they’d been dealing with lawyers and the adoption service for weeks on end, getting everything in order before they could finally bring Mary home permanently. The process felt like it was dragging on forever and not just because they wanted it so bad - it was actually taking forever.

“I’m so ready for bed, it is unreal,” Nic said, leading Conrad up the stairs.

“Oh, I’m with you on that one,” Conrad said, voice even gruffer than usual from how tired he was.

Nic made it to their room first and Conrad was right behind her, before he stopped because his phone rang.

He stood at the top of the stairs and answered it.

“Hello?” he said, for just a moment wishing he didn’t answer and spring directly into action every time he was called.

That feeling went away immediately, though.

“What?” he said.

Nic heard him and poked her head out of the door. He looked…tense, but not stressed. He looked like the call was really important, but not bad news.

“Okay,” he said. “Okay, yeah. Yes. Thank you. We’ll be there. We’ll be there!”

He hung up the call and looked up at Nic, smiling wide, suddenly very, very awake.

“That was the adoption lawyer,” he said. “All the paperwork’s finally done, we can pick up Mary on Saturday.”

“ _What_?”

Conrad practically ran up the last few stairs and into Nic’s arms.

“We,” he began, punctuating every word with a kiss on a different part of her face. “Get to take our daughter home on Saturday.”

“Conrad!” Nic yelled, in the exact same boat of pure happiness and awakeness.

She hugged him tight, not caring that he could definitely feel her tears on his shoulder through her shirt.

That was the best night of his life. But, not for very long.

**\--**

Mary’s first night was a whirlwind of emotions. They spent the day with her, letting her get used to the house and explore it on her own terms but also never being too far off so she didn't feel alone in a new place. By bedtime she was clearly exhausted from all the excitement.

They walked her upstairs to her room, feeling the strange electricity of the fact that this house wasn’t just Nic and Conrad’s anymore – it was their _family’s_.

They tucked her in, they read her a story, they let her know they were just in the next room if she needed absolutely anything.

Then they both spent the whole night awake, quietly stepping out and seeing that the light in her room was out, that they couldn’t hear her, that by all accounts she was asleep and comfortable and fine. They couldn't even feel how tired they were the next day, they were so happy.

**\--**

Conrad remembered the two months he spent carrying Mary up and down the stairs whenever she needed to use them. She’d broken her leg playing soccer - she played off the bench on the JV squad in her middle school but Conrad and Nic couldn’t be more proud. One nasty, possibly ill-advised slide tackle later, she had a simple fracture in her tibia and couldn’t put pressure on it for a while.

The first night, she was so shaken up from the shock and the pain that Conrad carried her upstairs and stayed with her until she fell asleep. After the first few days, she insisted she could get up and down the stairs on crutches just fine, like she did at school and everywhere else, but they both knew she loved having Conrad take care of her like that, and he loved doing it.

**\--**

“It’s not a date!” Mary declared, walking right past Nic and heading up the stairs.

Nic followed her up the stairs. “Oh, honey, it sounds like a date…”

“What would you know, Mom? You haven’t had a first date in twenty years.”

“Okay,” Nic said, laughing as she stood in Mary’s open doorway. “Can I come in?”

Mary nodded and Nic stepped inside.

“Just because I haven’t had a first date in a while doesn’t mean I don’t know what a first date is, Mary.”

Mary flopped on her bed. “If it was a first date,” she said. She held a hand up, pointing for emphasis. “Not that it definitely is! But if it was…what should I wear?”

“You should wear whatever you’re comfortable in,” Nic said. “And if this girl has any taste at all, she’ll like you no matter what you wear.”

“I know,” Mary said. “But I also want her to like what I wear. You know?”

“I do know,” Nic said. “But I’m guessing that if she likes you enough to ask you on a date,” Nic smiled, seeing her daughter’s head pop up at the d-word. “A maybe-date,” Nic amended. “A hang out, whatever you want to call it, she already likes you and what you wear.”

“I really like that shirt you got me for my birthday,” Mary said.

“Well, I’m very fashionable.” Nic sat on the edge of Mary’s bed, putting a hand on her knee. “Whatever you wear, you’re going to look incredible and you’re going to have a nice time.”

Mary groaned. “You don’t know that! I’ve never been on a date before, I could be really bad at it.”

“If you are there will be others and you will be okay,” Nic said. “Though I’m guessing you’re not. This girl asked you out for a reason, she wants to hang out with you. Just be yourself, because yourself is pretty great. It'll be okay, I promise.”

Mary sighed. “Can you help me pick an outfit?”

“Of course, baby girl.”

**\--**

Conrad and Nic exchanged a look when they heard their daughter storm up the stairs and slam her bedroom door.

“Maybe we should’ve just stuck with the chickens,” Conrad joked.

Nic leaned back on the counter, exhaling deeply and letting go all the tension and even laughing a bit. She knew it was normal for teens to fight with their parents, she knew it was just part of life. That didn’t make it any easier, though.

Conrad knew that, too.

They talked about it a lot – they were determined to be good parents, they were determined to make Mary’s life as happy and healthy as possible, they were determined to be the kind of family that talked things out, even if they didn’t exactly have great examples of how that worked in practice.

“Come on, let’s go,” Nic said, nodding toward the stairs. She and Conrad headed upstairs to do exactly what they planned on – talking it out.

**\--**

“You’re still doing homework?” Conrad asked, coming home from a shift that ran late and seeing Mary sitting at the dining room table, textbooks open in front of her.

“Somehow, I didn’t inherit your and Mom’s scientific minds,” Mary joked.

Conrad put his bag down and headed right over to the table to help her.

“No, Dad, it’s fine, you just got home after a long day,” Mary protested. “Go to bed. I’m almost done.”

“I am the science whisperer,” Conrad said, sitting beside her. “What are you studying?”

“AP Bio is kicking my ass,” Mary sighed, earning a look from her father. “Kicking my butt.”

“It has a way of doing that,” Conrad said. “What are you stuck on?”

She explained what she knew and what she was confused about, and she was 70% of the way there.

Conrad helped her figure the rest out, and after about an hour, she felt way more confident.

“Alright,” Conrad said, capping his pen with emphasis. “I’m calling it.”

“Come on, I can study for, like, another half hour,” Mary said. 

“Mary, it’s good you want to study until you have it absolutely down,” Conrad said. “But it’s okay if you don’t have it. Life is about balance, right? You still need to sleep and make sure you’re rested enough to take the test to the best of your ability.”

“You got home at 11 from a shift that started at 8AM.”

“Do as I say, not as I do,” Conrad said, kissing her head for emphasis. “But also, that’s because I know my limits. I’ve built up the stamina and habits that make it possible to pull long shifts. I’m an old man, kiddo, I’ve had a lifetime of long shifts. You, however, are seventeen. Your brain is still developing and it needs time to rest.”

Mary sighed again.

“Which is a good thing,” Conrad continued. “You’re still a kid, it’s your job to get enough rest and let your brain develop all the way and everything else comes next. There’s plenty of time later to stay up too late studying, trust me.”

“Dad, I’m not going to medical school.”

“Okay!” Conrad grinned, hands up in defeat. “Are you worried about something other than this test tomorrow?”

“No, not really,” Mary said.

Conrad gave her a look. If there was one thing everyone in his family had in common, it was underplaying their stress.

“I don’t like not being good at things.”

“Ah,” Conrad breathed. “Well, everyone has things they aren’t good at.”

“I know,” Mary said. “And, like, I have things I’m bad at that I don’t feel this way about. I wasn’t good at soccer, but I still played and I enjoyed it. I’m bad at baking but I still made those cookies for that bake sale last week and people bought them. But I’m good at school, I’ve always been good at school. Then I take AP Bio my senior year and I’m bad at it and I hate it.”

“Mary, don’t you have a B in this class?”

“I haven’t gotten a B since that gym teacher in the seventh grade refused to give me an A because I broke my leg and sat out all winter.”

“Well, that gym teacher was the worst,” Conrad said. “And AP Bio is a hard class. Passing at all is an accomplishment, let alone with a B.”

“It’s not an A.”

“It’s also not a C,” Conrad countered. “Are you doing your best in the class?”

“Yeah, I’m working so hard on it.”

“Then that’s the best you can do,” Conrad said.

“Do you settle for just your best with your patients?” Mary asked. “Just your best, not _the_ best?”

“You’re a high school student, you’re not a doctor.”

Mary didn’t look convinced. She kept drawing squiggles in the margin of her notebook, kind of surprised her pen even had ink after all the notes she took that night.

“Mary, hey,” Conrad said, and she finally looked at him. “I’m sorry if your mother and I gave you the impression that your best isn’t enough. Your best is more than enough.”

“I want to be _the_ best.”

“Did I tell you your mom had to teach me how to draw blood?” Conrad asked. “Doctors do all this stuff, we can do all sorts of procedures, but one time when I was a third-year resident your mom asked me to draw blood and I couldn’t do it. I had no idea. I could put a foot-long breathing tube down someone’s throat but I couldn’t put a needle in a vein and get a little bit of blood.”

“I don’t know how to draw blood either, Dad.”

“Point is,” Conrad continued, smiling at her joke but continuing with the fatherly advice. “No one is the best at everything. We all have things we’re not good at, even if we are very good at other things like that thing we're bad at.”

“I’m going to study public policy, right?” Mary asked. “I’m going to be responsible for a lot of people. What if I get it wrong?”

“We all get it wrong at some point,” Conrad said. “Trust me, kiddo, I’ve made way bigger mistakes in my career than just being bad at drawing blood. When you are lucky enough to have a position of power, a position of responsibility, that makes the mistakes feel that much worse. But mistakes happen, they happen to everyone. You avoid the ones you can and you learn from the ones you can’t.”

Mary nodded, taking in the advice.

“You are a good person, Mary,” he said. “You have this huge heart that you just want to share with everyone and you want to make everything better. That’s the important thing. So many people get into jobs like mine and your mom's and jobs like the ones you’ll have because they want power over people. And that’s something you can’t come back from, that’s something that, if you’re not doing it for the right reasons in the first place, no matter what you do it will never be the best. You want to do what you want to do for the right reasons. So, already you’re in the right track.”

Mary exhaled deeply. It was a lot to take in, but this was also one of her favorite things about her father – he could give a really good uplifting speech.

“I’m not sure my AP Bio grades affect the greater good all that much.”

“No,” Conrad said. “Probably not. But this desire you have to be better than you were yesterday? That’s going to follow you everywhere. And I am so, so proud of you for it.”

Mary smiled and Conrad stood.

“Alright, now bed, for real.”

“Okay,” Mary said. Together they packed up her books and headed upstairs.

Conrad walked her to her door.

“Thank you for the talk, Dad,” she said, giving him a hug. “I love you.”

“I love you, too,” he said, hugging her just a little tighter than normal. He’d been avoiding thinking about her moving out for college, even if they knew she was staying in town and just living in a dorm. But now, he had to think about it. He was so proud of her, but he was going to miss her so much.

**\--**

Snippets of those walks up the stairs played in both Conrad’s and Nic’s memories as they headed up to their daughter’s room. They joked about turning the room into an office or a gym or something the second she left, but they all knew that they weren’t going to touch it.

So, it occurred to both of them that this would be the last time they’d walk up to their daughter’s bedroom for a while.

Nic knocked on her door.

“Come in!” Mary called and Nic opened up, and she and Conrad went in.

“Hey, hon,” Nic said. “Have a minute?”

“Yeah,” Mary said. She was sitting at her desk and spun her chair to face her parents. “What’s up?”

“Can we sit?” Conrad asked.

Mary nodded, and they sat on her bed.

“How’s all the last minute stuff coming?” Nic asked.

“Good! Yeah, it’s all pretty much done,” Mary said. “I was just watching this video Elena sent me, I promised I’d give her a full review when I see her tomorrow.”

“Well, sorry to interrupt,” Nic said.

“No worries,” Mary said. “What’s up?”

“I want you to have your grandmother’s ring,” Nic said, handing it to her.

Mary took it and looked at it. She looked up at her mother.

“This is yours,” Mary said. “Dad gave it to you, grandma said to give it to the love of his life.”

“And he did,” Nic said, giving his hand a squeeze. “And I want you to do the same.”

Mary’s eyebrows went up at that. 

“Mom…”

“Not to say you’ve met her yet,” Nic said quickly. “Or that you need to give the ring to someone right now if you have.”

“This ring belongs to our family,” Conrad said. “From my mom to me, to your mom, to you. And you can give it to whoever makes you feel like family, whenever that happens.”

“Do I have to give it away?”

“No,” Nic said, after a second of confusion. “Of course not. You can keep it, it’s for you. You don’t ever have to give it away if you don’t want to.”

Mary nodded, taking that in. She had thought about getting the ring but she didn’t expect to get it then. She thought maybe after college, or when she moved out of the city.

“Look, Mary, you’re starting this huge, incredible journey tomorrow and your father and I are so proud of you and everything you’ve accomplished so far. And we know you have so many incredible things ahead of you and you’re going to do incredible things and be an even more incredible person and meet other incredible people. If anything, this ring is a promise that all that will happen. At least, that’s how I saw it, once I found out the meaning behind it.”

Conrad had the good sense to accept the slight dig on that – he should have told her the ring’s meaning from the start. Sometimes, he wondered how things would’ve turned out if he had, if they would have gotten through their issues sooner, if a lot of pain could have been avoided. But he loved his life, he loved his family, and he wouldn’t change anything.

“And you don’t have to look at this the same way,” Nic said. “It can be whatever you want it to be. But I want you to know, I’m giving it to you because I love you so much, baby girl. I know a ring can’t express that, but I hope when you wear this, you know that, for every second, you are loved so much. You are supported so much in everything, all the time; your father and I are always here for you.”

Mary smiled. “I’m glad you didn’t try to go for an inscription, because that was a lot,” she said through the tears that somehow showed up.

Nic stood and hugged her daughter.

“I love you, too, Mom,” Mary said. “Thank you for the ring.”

“Oh, family group hug!” Conrad said, standing and joining in.

He held his girls tight, utterly happy with his life. His mother had told him to give the ring to the love of his life, and he had. 

But he realized his mother had, too – Conrad loved Mary in a way he didn’t really know possible until he did, and he knew Nic felt the same way. Right there in his arms he held the two people he loved most in the entire world, more than anyone and anything else. These two women were the two great loves of his life. He knew his mother would’ve loved them, too.

**\--**

“Over under on when she gives her the ring?” Conrad asked, standing on the porch with Nic and watching his daughter and her girlfriend say their goodbyes.

“Oh, she’s definitely giving it to her,” Nic said. “I’ve come to the conclusion that our daughter is better than us in every way, including that she had the good sense to find the love of her life early and actually do something about it.”

Conrad laughed. “Tell me how you really feel, Nic.”

“Like our lives are perfect,” Nic said. “Like our family is perfect. I used to wonder what would’ve happened if you told me what the ring meant when you gave it to me, and I’m fooling myself if I think I would’ve done anything but run for the hills. We took the long way, sure, but it got us _here_. And I love here.”

“Mhm, so do I,” Conrad whispered into her ear, kissing her jaw just below it.

“I don’t know when she’s giving her the ring, though,” Nic said, leaning against Conrad as he put his arm around her and they both tried very hard not to be _those_ parents who watch their daughter and her girlfriend have their private goodbye. “I mean, Elena is staying in Atlanta, too. Georgia State is not that far. They’re not going to have to try to deal with the distance thing.”

“True,” Conrad said. “I give it until Christmas.”

“Christmas?” Nic said. “No way. That’s too soon. Mary was really excited about the ring! I don’t think she’s going to take it off for at least a year.”

“New Year’s, maybe,” Conrad said. “President’s Day, possibly? I don’t see it getting much further than that.”

“Not a chance,” Nic said. “There is no way, Conrad, it’s a family heirloom!”

“Well, I never wore it.”

“Because you have weird fingers.”

“What?” Conrad asked, kissing her cheek again. “We’ve barely sent the kid away to school and everything’s already unraveling.”

“Not bad weird. Just…weird. The ring wouldn’t look good on you.”

“It’s a ring, Nic, they look good on everybody.”

“Okay,” Nic said, eyebrows up, drawing out the word. “Conrad, you are lucky I love you, because if I didn’t I would have some _very_ choice words about that ring you still wear.”

“What?” Conrad asked, matching her smile. “Seriously, fifteen years of marriage and now the truth comes out?”

“It’s a choice, babe.”

“A good choice.”

“Just a choice,” Nic shrugged. She turned to face him and kissed him.

“Okay, yeah, I am lucky you love me,” he said, kissing her back.

**\--**

“So, she gave you the ring?” Elena asked, sitting on her car hood beside her girlfriend.

“Yep,” Mary said. “I wasn’t expecting it last night.”

“Why not? You’re moving out, basically.”

“I don’t know,” Mary shrugged. “I always thought about the ring like my dad had it, _then_ he met the love of his life. I’m doing it backwards.”

Elena smirked at that. “Okay, that was smooth, I’ll admit.”

“I want to wear it for a while,” Mary admitted. “It was my mom’s, she used to wear it all the time and whenever she was stressed or nervous, she’d play with it. Not her wedding ring, not her engagement ring, this one. She said it was the first gift he ever gave her that wasn’t, like, picking up the beer tab.”

“Mary, I get it,” Elena said. “It’s your mom’s, and it was your grandma’s. It’s a big deal.”

“Keep a finger free, though, okay?” Mary said, taking her girlfriend’s hand.

“Okay,” Elena laughed.

“I’m serious,” Mary said. “I love you, you’re the love of my life. I’m ready to say that, I’m ready for everyone to know, I’m sorry I’m just not ready for the ring part-.”

Elena cut her off with a kiss. “I feel the same way,” she said. “And I don’t need the ring. It’s yours, Mar, hold onto it a while. I’ll be here.”

“I’m really going to miss you,” Mary said, putting her head on her shoulder.

“I’m going to miss you, too,” Elena said. “But you’re the love of my life, you know? So no matter what, we’ll figure it out.”

**\--**

Conrad and Nic saw Mary and Elena at every major holiday in the following months and always took silent note of where the ring was.

Nic noticed that Mary picked up the same habit she had, of fidgeting with the ring when she was nervous or anxious.

Then, one night the following June, Elena came over for a movie night with Mary.

Conrad and Nic stayed out of the way, enjoying a night outside to the sound of Atlanta traffic and their own chickens, when they came inside for a drink refill.

They passed Mary and Elena on the couch together, watching some old French film about a painter. They both waved as Conrad and Nic passed, though.

And the ring was on Elena’s finger.

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first time writing for this show, and it kind of got away from me. This is way longer than I intended it to be! I hope you enjoy it regardless! Please let me know what you think :)


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